


Infinite Sea

by thesearchforbluejello



Series: Rogue Oneshots [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Rebelcaptain Week, does this count as hurt/comfort if it's mostly hurt?, look mom I'm putting my degree to good use, warning: contains philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 13:44:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15292809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesearchforbluejello/pseuds/thesearchforbluejello
Summary: The nights are never easy.





	Infinite Sea

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tiny, tiny response to the prompt "believe," but it did a number on me in the half hour or so I took to actually write it. Unbeta'ed because I don't have my life together.

The sea is bleeding into the sky.

The water is gold, the surface fractured like a shattered mirror, the waves brushing the sand with a whispered sibilance. 

She watches the horizon burn away.

Cassian's hair is soft against her cheek, his hand gripping her neck so tightly it aches. She can feel every breath he takes, the fine tremor of his battered body, their grief and relief dissolving into a single emotion without name. She holds him tightly, desperately, clutching him to herself as though he's not fragile, brittle, ready to fade from her grasp like the horizon.

There is so much hope now, hope that the plans have made it to the rebel fleet, hope that her father's betrayal of the Empire can bring victory to the Alliance. But there is no hope for them. They will die here, with the sand soft beneath their knees. There's a roar at the edge of the light like the universe is wrenching apart around them, the fabric of all reality they've ever known ripping apart stitch by stitch in a cacophony that almost sounds like music.

The irrevocable knowledge that they will die had come as something closely akin to relief to her. There was nothing more to fight them to for, nothing more to survive. It had been a settling sort of peace, and she had held Cassian against herself, grateful to have had him in her life for however short a time. She'd watched the light approach, unafraid.

But now it just tastes like dust in her mouth. There's fear creeping up her arms like a rising tide, gentle and cloying. Cassian will die. She knows this. She's powerless to stop it, to save him before Scarif shatters around them. 

She clutches him to herself, desperate hold him together, but he too shatters in her grasp.

She wakes screaming. 

There are blankets over her, suffocating like the waves, so she tears them away. The air of the room rushes to sting against her skin. She falls to her feet, catching her balance, socks slipping on the duracrete floor. She stumbles directionless in the dark.

"Jyn," he says. "Jyn." She knows that voice. She knows that voice and it carves a devastation in her chest that threatens to cripple her. The light flicks on and he's standing in front of her, messy hair and socked feet. She claps a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.

Of course it wasn't real. They lived-- she knows they lived, but that knowledge does not, cannot outweigh the emotion that lingers and festers in her chest.

Chirrut had told her after Scarif that some believe that the Force is raw possibility, all things encapsulated in it, wrapped up by its intangible threads. Different universes, realities, existing in tandem, all permutations of events, of differences, of similarities. They all exist at once in the Force, pooled together like an infinite ocean, the sea she sees when she sleeps.

In some of them, they died. In some of them, Cassian died.

He's standing before her, but the lingering reality of her dream whispers to her that he can't be, that he's gone. Sometimes she thinks it would be easier to have lived in a reality where they died, where she didn't wake screaming, where she didn't come within inches of losing each other sometimes, drowning in a tide of almost-grief. Easier still to have lived in a universe where they never met, so she didn't know what she had to lose, or a universe in which they led different lives, promised to each other until they grew old and were buried together.

"It's okay," Cassian says, drawing her against his chest. One arm wraps around her waist, the other grips the back of her neck like she'll disappear if he doesn't hold on. The sound of the sea rushes in her ears. The sky is gold behind her eyelids. "It's okay."

She wraps her arms around him, her forehead against his neck. 

"It'll be okay," he says. "Somewhere, sometime, it'll be okay."

She nods against him. She believes this, most days.

Because if infinity exists, if the Force exists, somewhere out there in raw possibility they're happy. Maybe here, maybe now, maybe soon, and that has to be enough to get her through the night.

Cassian shuts the lights off and settles them back into the bed, pulling the blankets close around them to keep her warm. She wraps herself in him, tangling their legs, tucking her head beneath his chin, letting his arms settle around her.

He's more than enough to get her through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> When I wrote this all I could think about is how weird it is to write about characters considering multiple universe theory when you also factor in a modal realist's reading of Meinong's Jungle. Because that's a whole extra level of weird.
> 
> Songs for this one are: Hoping by X Ambassadors and Sound of Pulling Heaven Down by Blue October, but I prefer the version sung acoustically by Justin Fuhrstenfeld on the Songs From and Open Book album.


End file.
